A SECRET OF THE ORANGE RIVER. 195 



disappeared, he gave a low whistle, a signal to 

 approach, to which I quickly responded. Quietly 

 pushing my way towards him, I was astonished to 

 see within a small clearing a thick and high thorn 

 fence, outside of which Klaas stood. Inside this 

 circular kraal was a low round hut, formed of boughs 

 and branches strongly and closely interlaced. Klaas 

 was standing watching intently the interior of the 

 hut, which seemed to be barred at its tiny entrance 

 by a pile of thorns lying close against it. 



" What could it mean, this strange dwelling, 

 inaccessible as it seemed to human life ? Klaas soon 

 ound a weak spot in the kraal fence, and pulling 

 down some thorns, we stepped inside and approached 

 the hut. Here, too, Klaas pulled away the dry 

 mimosa thorns from the entrance, and was at once 

 confronted by a tiny bow and arrow, and behind that 

 by a fierce little weazened face. Instantly, my 

 Bushman poured forth a torrent of his own language, 

 redundant beyond expression with those extraordinary 

 clicks of which the Bushman tongue seems mainly 

 to consist. Even as he spoke, the bow and arrow 

 were lowered, the little head appeared through the 

 entrance, and the tiniest, quaintest, most ancient 

 figure of a man I had ever beheld stood before us. 

 Ancient, did I say ? ancient is hardly a meet 

 description of his aspect. As he stood there, blinking 

 like an owl in the fierce sunlight, his only covering a 

 little skin kaross of the red rhebok fastened over his 

 shoulders, standing not more than three feet eight 

 or ten inches in height, he looked indeed coeval with 

 the rocks around him. I never saw anything like it. 

 Poor little oddity ; dim though his eyes were waxing, 

 feeble though his shrivelled arm, dulled though his 



